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Earle McCurdy
Earle McCurdy was president of the Fish Food and Allied Workers Union from 1993 to 2014, succeeding founding president Richard Cashin. Earle had been the union’s secretary-treasurer for 13 years, from 1980 to 1993.
McCurdy grew up in St. John’s and graduated from of MUN where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts. He worked as a reporter The Evening Telegram in the 1970s, covering the labour beat, before becoming involved with the fisheries’ union, initially as editor of Union Forum.
He was a young radical from the start being involved in student activism and protesting increases in tuition at MUN and staging sit-ins. He has been consistently fighting for equality and fairness all his life.
He has seen the Union through the Moratorium, “the fight for fair sharing of crab and shrimp resources and the successful fightback against Raw Material Sharing, just to name a few major events.
He was elected leader of the Newfoundland and Labrador NDP in March 2015, defeating two other contenders with 68% support on the first ballot. He stepped down as Leader in 2017 and moved to Eastport where he wrote his first book A Match to a Blasty Bough: How FFAW-UNIFOR Confronted Power and Shared the Wealth.